Dynamic adaptive streaming over hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) (DASH) may be designed to enable efficient delivery of multimedia services, in the form of media presentation definitions (MPD)-guided and segment-based streaming, because of its leverage on the existing Internet infrastructure, such as HTTP-based content distribution networks (CDNs).
The dynamic adaptive streaming enabled by DASH is driven and managed by the client. In a client-managed adaptive streaming, it may be the client that not only selects a set of Adaptation Sets and one specific Representation within each Adaptation Set and makes requests for segments therein, but also makes decisions such as on Representation switching, updated MPD fetching, and encoder clock drift control. These selections and decisions are supposed to be made to suit for the client environment based on information provided in the MPD (e.g., bandwidth of each selected Representations), static characteristics of the environment (e.g., client decoding and rendering capabilities), and dynamic characteristics the client monitors about its changing environment (e.g., available bandwidth of the network connection).